


Dance Our Little Dance

by asexualjuliet



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: (well no shit it’s about Logan), Duncan Kane deserves love, Duncan is the mom friend, Gen, He Cares So Much, He’s a good dude ok, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:34:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26706790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asexualjuliet/pseuds/asexualjuliet
Summary: They dance around the subject, an awkward little dance. Logan trips over his own feet and Duncan keeps on dancing like he didn’t notice anything. Duncan tries to stop dancing and Logan pretends nothing ever happened.Or, Logan shows up at Duncan’s house with a  black eye, and Duncan doesn’t ask questions.
Relationships: Logan Echolls & Duncan Kane
Comments: 10
Kudos: 15





	Dance Our Little Dance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [broadway_hufflepuff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/broadway_hufflepuff/gifts).



> For my favorite girl broadway_hufflepuff, who requested “a fic for Duncan and Logan being best friends and caring about each other pre canon or pre season 2.”  
> Thanks to Mary for the extremely valid request. I had a lot of fun writing this!
> 
> Duncan’s a good dude okay!! He gets a lot of hate but he’s dealing with a lot of shit and trying his best!
> 
> Also fuck Aaron Echolls. All my homies hate Aaron Echolls.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Through the sound of the pouring rain, Duncan can barely hear the knocking at his window. 

He ignores it the first time, assuming it’s just a bird, or maybe it’s started hailing or something, but the second time, the sound is unmistakable as someone’s fist hitting his window. 

Duncan sighs, gets up, and opens his window to find a battered, bruised, and thoroughly soaked-to-the-bone Logan Echolls on his roof. 

“What the hell,” Duncan says, and it’s not a question so much as an admonishment. 

“Shit, man, save the _worried mom_ crap for later,” says Logan, teeth chattering from the cold. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah, of course,” Duncan says, and Logan crawls through the window into his room, landing on the floor with a thud. 

“Mother _fucker,”_ he whispers under his breath, hands flying to his ribs. 

“What happened?” Duncan asks, hovering over Logan like a worried mother hen. 

“Got into a fight with some asshole PCHer,” Logan says, and the lie slips off his tongue easily, but Duncan doesn’t buy it for a second. 

“In the pouring rain?”

Logan doesn’t meet his eyes. Duncan sighs, pulling out a sweatshirt and a pair of pants. 

“I’ll be back with the first aid stuff,” he says, putting the clothes down next to Logan. “Get changed, you’ll catch a cold.”

Logan doesn’t even call him out for mother-henning, just nods, leaving Duncan to slip away for supplies. 

Duncan’s not stupid. Logan’s had bruises on his arms and cigarette burns on his shoulders since the third grade and he hates his dad more than the Dodgers hate the Yankees. It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together. 

They dance around the subject, an awkward little dance. Logan trips over his own feet and Duncan keeps on dancing like he didn’t notice anything. Duncan tries to stop dancing and Logan pretends nothing ever happened. 

It’s a shitty little dance, and it’s not doing either one of them any good. But Logan’s dealing with enough, and he really doesn’t need to be grilled for information right now. 

Logan’s sitting at the foot of Duncan’s bed when he comes back with the first-aid kit, hugging his knees and still trembling despite the sweatshirt he’s wrapped himself in. 

“Hey,” Duncan says. “You okay?”

Logan nods jerkily. “Yeah,” he says. Duncan doesn’t believe him for shit, but says nothing, sitting down across from Logan and getting to work on his face. 

Logan’s nursing a black eye, bright and swollen and purple, fading into yellow at the edges. Just looking at it kind of makes Duncan feel sick. 

But he sucks it up, fills a Ziploc bag with ice, wraps it in a paper towel, and instructs Logan to hold it to his eye. He wipes blood off of Logan’s split lip with a damp washcloth and then moves on. 

“Your ribs,” Duncan says, and Logan tenses. 

“They’re fine,” he lies. 

Duncan sighs. “Logan…” he says. Logan looks down at the ground. 

Not making eye contact, he pulls up the left side of his sweatshirt, and Duncan gasps. A mottled purple bruise works its way from Logan’s ribs down to his hip, and Duncan doesn’t know what to say. 

“Shit, man, don’t do that,” Logan says, voice breaking, and Duncan takes a deep breath. 

“Sorry,” he says. “I—I don’t know what to do for your ribs. How—how do they feel?”

“Hurt like a bitch,” says Logan, and Duncan can tell he’s doing his damnedest not to cry. 

“Can you—can you breathe okay?” he asks. Logan shrugs. 

“It hurts if I breathe too deep.”

“You need to go to the hospital,” Duncan says, and Logan looks up, wild-eyed. 

_“Fuck,_ no,” he says emphatically. “Holy _shit,_ no.”

Duncan tries to reason with him. “You’re hurt,” he says. “God, Logan, it’s hurting you to _breathe,_ you have to go to a hospital.”

“My dad will fucking kill me,” Logan says quietly, and Duncan gets the sense he’s not really exaggerating. 

_(He remembers in fifth grade when someone called Child Services to the Echolls house. The CPS investigator walked away with a movie star’s autograph and Logan showed up to school the next day with cigarette burns on his wrist)._

“Okay,” says Duncan slowly. “I’m gonna—I’m gonna get you some Advil and we’re gonna…” he trails off. He has no idea how to fix this. 

“Sleep it off,” finishes Logan. “I’ll pop some pills and sleep it off.”

Duncan’s not an expert, but he’s fairly certain Logan’s injuries are a little past the “sleeping it off” stage. He says nothing though, keeps dancing their god-awful dance, and goes to get some Advil. 

Logan chokes down the Advil and nabs a pillow from Duncan’s bed before curling up on the floor. 

“Are you kidding me?” Duncan asks, looking down on him. Logan looks up, wide-eyed. “You think you’re sleeping on the floor?”

“It’s your bed, man, I’m not gonna make _you_ sleep on the floor,” Logan says, and Duncan just stares at him. 

“Your ribs are purple,” he says, and Logan shrugs. 

“Jesus, get up,” Duncan says, rolling his eyes, and holding out a hand. Logan takes it and Duncan helps him up. 

“The bed’s reserved for people who are beat to hell and can’t breathe right,” says Duncan, and Logan winces a little. Duncan’s not sure if it’s a reaction to his blunt words or the throbbing pain or both. 

Logan sits down on the bed and goes to remove his shoes. “Son of a _bitch,”_ he gasps as soon as he bends down, bringing a ginger hand to his bruised ribs. 

“I got it, man,” says Duncan, kneeling down and untying Logan’s shoelaces before filling another plastic bag with ice and handing it to Logan. 

“For your ribs,” he says, and Logan nods his appreciation, currently too preoccupied with his pain to form real words. 

Once Logan’s settled in, lying down as well as he can, Duncan asks, “Lights out?”

“Yes, sir,” Logan responds with a smirk. Duncan flips the light switch and pulls up a piece of floor. 

Logan’s breathing is shallow, carefully measured so as not to injure himself even more. Logan’s never come to him for help before, but Duncan knows this isn’t the first time it’s happened, so he opens his mouth and lets his voice cut through the darkness. 

“You know I’m always here,” he says, the words vague enough that they don’t break the careful dance they’ve been dancing for so long, but meaningful enough that he knows Logan can read between the lines. 

“I know,” says Logan quietly. 

Duncan can’t think of anything else to say, and the night is silent, save for Logan’s shallow breathing. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> All mistakes are my own, please let me know if you see any!
> 
> Kudos/Comments are greatly appreciated!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [a game of catch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26807539) by [broadway_hufflepuff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/broadway_hufflepuff/pseuds/broadway_hufflepuff)




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